Religion Dispatches
…, that would seem to grant an astonishing power to religion to effect real world, and very nearly miraculous changes. Or perhaps the claim is less miraculous-seeming than that. Perhaps they are not suggesting that religiosity can effect the size of the human brain, but rather that there is an elective affinity between brain size, brain activity, and religiosity. If you’ve got a small brain then you’re more likely to be born again, and if you have…
Read More…household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President. LBJ’s 1965 War on Poverty was triggered in part by the famous “Moynihan Report” finding that the black out-of-wedlock birthrate had hit 26%; today, the white rate exceeds that, the overall rate is 41%, and over 70% of African-American babies are born to single parent. Um, Hell-to-the-yeah slavery had a disastrous impact on African-Ame…
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…e, the activism that launched Bachmann’s political career was an extended crusade against public schools in Minnesota (which, oddly enough, included a failed bid for a spot on her local school board, even though her own children did not attend public schools). According to a 2006 Minneapolis City Pages profile, in 1993 Bachmann helped found a charter school in Stillwater “that ran afoul of many parents and the local school board when it became app…
Read MoreRalph Reed’s op-ed in USA Today is a good example of the limitations of relying on scripture as a guide to and basis for public policy. Many religious advocates for comprehensive immigration reform have invoked the biblical themes of compassion and welcoming strangers in making the case for moving millions of undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. Reed mentions those same themes, while arguing that it’s “a matter of judgment” how to apply th…
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…“deceiving.” Romney’s, according to fact checkers at the San Jose Mercury News, the Washington Post, and USA Today, was only slightly less mendacious; the continuing falsehood about cuts to health care providers spun by the Romney campaign as cuts to Medicare beneficiaries noted as among the larger whoppers propagated in the speech. It seems unlikely that the GOP candidate would flat-out lie about investment by the Episcopal Church, but on a conv…
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…religious progressives like me have reached so few people beyond the small worlds of the academy, church and community organizing in which we live. Progressive Christianity today, by whatever name, is characterized by an ethos of egalitarian civility that makes it allergic to developing strong leaders. It works in a coalitional style and speaks in the voice of an improvisational ensemble, or as James Wind says, an always-evolving chorus. We don’t…
Read More…responded, “Amen. Amen. . . . Got the ‘amen’ corner here.” The Rev. Canon Susan Russell, Senior Associate Minister at All Saints Church in Pasadena, California, attended the White House signing today. Ball, said Russell, “got it wrong.” Ball cites the abandoned effort of Sojourners’ Jim Wallis to send a letter to Obama urging the inclusion of an exemption, as well as the letter organized by former Obama campaign and White House staffer Michael Wea…
Read More…ation Justice Department memo — to remain in place. The memo, known as the World Vision Memo, interpreting RFRA, permits federally-funded religious organizations to receive an exemption from federal rules barring employment discrimination if they certify that they serve all clients regardless of religion, keep religious content separate from other program content, and that “the Applicant is a religious organization that sincerely believes that pro…
Read More…asiest ways to respond to that complexity is to dismiss unsubstantiated accusations as “rumors” and to proclaim the accused “innocent until proven guilty.” From a certain angle, this looks like the moral thing to do. The problem with this approach is that it takes no account of the peculiarities of sexualized violence as a crime in our culture: our long history of blaming victims and placing disproportionate burden of proof upon them, and the very…
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…it evinces Jewish pride. We don’t need to get nose jobs anymore. We’re not running from the Red Scare. In fact, the mayor of a major American city—Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino—issued a proclamation in honor of Thanksgivukkah. I have deeply ambivalent, uncomfortable feelings about state displays of religion, but you have to feel a bit of awe: the city that won the World Series this year (fear the beard!) is also acknowledging our minor festival. Co…
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